Main event Misterioso (to take the pin, but he may main event more times in Japan this year than in Mexico.) Devitt & Rojo is a rematch of their Arena Mexico match, where they didn’t seem to mesh well to me. Rojo’s probably not going to be challenging for Devitt’s Junior title so he’s unlikely to get a win here. Mistico teams with other gimmicks, including someone else who’s taken on the name of a more famous (and better) wrestler. Rush gets to resume his beatings on Yoshihashi. Titan is the opening match, where’s unfortunately stuck for most of the matches.

Main event is IWGP Heavyweight, IWGP Junior Heavyweight and Mistico together for the photo op.

Mascara and Volador had that singles match 7 times last year, and could do have again in their sleep. That’s especially good for Mascara, who didn’t appear to be awake when he was here two years ago. That’s the one title match on this tour I’m not quite sure how is going to finish, but I know how it’ll go.

Sombra’s coming home with a title belt on the trip. There’s no way he gets two title matches and loses them both unless he’s just not coming back here anytime soon. (Also, it’s Dragon Rojo, and he has another belt. That probably means he’s winning on Saturday, since Friday & Sunday seem bad draws for him.)

If Rey Bucanero was healthy, it’s him versus Rush on this card and probably a Rush title win. Rush is still set up for a pretty strong weekend.

Mascara Dorada, Titan and Diamante don’t really get highlight matches this three show trip. There’s only so many guys you can highlight. You can argue any of them over Mistico, but that’s a problem with making Dragon Lee Mistico, not really the booking. Anyway, the point is this cibernetico is the best place to change that. It may be the best match of these shows.

Maximo vs Taichi is the annual match.

CMLL.com mentions all three shows will be taped for SamuraiTV. No mention of iPPV; I’m not really sure how many times NJPW plans on making their shows iPPV a year, but Sunday would be the show to do if they’re doing any of them.

Like this:

6 thoughts on “NJPW/CMLL 2013 FantasticaMania Lineups”

Aside from no Sombra/Volador interaction & the positioning of Misticlon I really have no issues with the lineups.

Titan up first on night one is perfect. For these shows you either want to be first or last. The crowd will ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ to start the night so Titan should get over if all goes well whereas Dorada/Volador Jr. stuck in the middle of the show will be forgotten by the end of the night. So him relegated to opening matches on night 1 & 2 isn’t awful. (Night 2’s real opener will be all sorts of nothing so I just count it as a dark match)

Good to see Misterioso on top on night 1. He deserves it and will do great as a base for Sombra. I’m surprised they don’t have Mephisto in that position but I guess right now they only trust Euforia/Mephisto to work with Misticlon.

I’m pretty confident Misticlon will bomb on this tour. Assuming he lasts the entire 3 days without hurting himself. There are way more spectacular guys who are all hitting the ring before him and there is nothing he does that they don’t do so by the time he hits the ring he’ll be nothing but a copycat (how ironic). He’ll surely have trouble with the ropes/turnbuckles having never worked in Japan before. I would avoid the SSP if I were him. I’m curious to see his return match on Tuesday to see what his offense looks like. He’s never re-attempted the ramp spot that injured him in Puebla and thus I can only assume he’s not also banned from doing the SSP. Considering he started off with 5 moves he now seems to be down to 3 (the assisted rana to the floor, the somersault rana from the ramp and his finisher). There is no ramp at Korakuen Hall & one of his matches is a singles match. By my math that leaves him with 1 move. He’s just not ready for this and it’s another in a long line of mis-steps by CMLL as relates to this kid.